


deconstruction, or, the art of repair

by earlylight



Series: cabin fever [1]
Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Spoilers through to s03e03, just two guys being dudes, to be clear the tyrelliot is entirely from tyrell's side as elliot is not actually in this fic, very light d/s elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-25 02:59:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12521436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlylight/pseuds/earlylight
Summary: “Think of that mask you’ve got on, that one you wear for your wife, showing her you’re strong, that you’re Mister Tough Guy – it ain’t comfortable, is it? It’s an ill fit. So, take it off, set that on the coffee table—” He mimes lifting off a mask off Tyrell’s face, and placing it aside, “There we go – and let me help you.”In a secluded Dark Army safehouse, an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. Set during S03E03, and through Season 2.





	deconstruction, or, the art of repair

**Author's Note:**

> a.k.a. Mr. Robot Presents Brokeback Mountain: Lumberjack Edition, a.k.a. The Obligatory S03E03 Reaction Fic, a.k.a. Look. I Can Explain.

Irving ignores the first impact – the chair tipping over, clacking against the wooden floor – but once the light rattle-and-thud of what may possibly be a very expensive, clean and shielded Dark Army laptop being repeatedly slammed against the table drifts into the dining area from the other room, he marks his book with a sigh, setting it aside. It’s late, so he’ll have to wait until tomorrow, probably, to find out where the Commander is taking Offred.

“Hey, Wellick!” he calls out. “Get in here. Now.” Through the doorway, in the muted light of the single bulb, he sees the angry Swede in question start, like a naughty child caught playing hooky, and then, crossing his arms across his chest, come to stand in the doorway rather than make his way all the way over to the couch. A powerplay, then – a punk kid, trying to grab the scraps he can reach. Irving sighs, again, and rubs a hand against his temple.

“We can’t have you damaging Dark Army property like that,” he admonishes, and Tyrell’s face grows stormier. “That’s some very valuable gear you’re messing around with, and you won’t likely get offered another set if you decide to play too rough with your toys.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Tyrell bites out. “I have it under control.”

“I’m sure you do,” Irving says easily. “But accidents happen, even to the best of us, that’s why we’ve always gotta take care. What’s got a bee in your bonnet tonight, mm? Maybe we can figure it out together.”

“There’s nothing _wrong_ ,” Tyrell says, “It’s just—everything would run smoother, faster, _better_ , if Elliot was here. If the absolute incompetence of your organization didn’t allow him to go to _jail_ —”

“Careful, now,” Irving says softly, drawing his voice across a knife's edge. “Don’t want to go down a road you can’t come back from.”

“I…” Tyrell begins, and then makes a frustrated noise, punctuating it with a small punch to the doorframe. Irving waits for an apology, and when that evidently isn't forthcoming, sighs for a third time. As much as he'd like not to be involved in handling damaged goods, anyone can plainly see Wellick will flip from an asset to a liability if he doesn't step in and fix the situation.

“Well, Elliot’s not here, and that’s the way it is,” Irving says eventually, putting some lightness back into his tone. “It’s just you and me, buddy. And, I may not be some fancy-pants cybersecurity expert, but one thing I _do_ know about is when a car ain’t performing up to scratch.”

“Excuse me?” Tyrell asks.

“Oftentimes there’s a rattle in there, that's the symptom, some loose part fallen out of place,” he continues, “And the whole machine is in danger of being shredded from the inside. If you don’t take some action to initiate a repair, then, well, something that was once a way to make a pretty penny becomes a pile of junk. Do you see what I’m getting at here?”

“I see that you’re implying my work is not up to standard,” Tyrell says, fire coming back into his eyes, “And I’ll have you know I had zero tolerance for this kind of insolence from my subordinates, and I don’t care that you’re my handler, or whatever your role is in this, I will _not_ tolerate this from you, when I _know_ my performance is _exceeding_ what can be expected under these conditions—”

“Hey, hey, calm down,” Irving says, putting his palms up placatingly. “I don’t know squat about coding, but I’m sure you’re doing a fine job. Look, I’m not your ‘handler’ here, I’m just a fixer – I see a problem, I solve it. I’m just saying, in my professional opinion, that you’d do well to unwind for a bit. It would be beneficial for the work you’re doing, while in the process giving me fewer cluster headaches from the chair making sweet love to the floor every second minute. Flying off the handle every time something's not going your way, we both know that won't solve anything, so. I know a few ways we can work through this, just, throw me a bone here, alright?”

“I’m already splitting logs, like you kindly suggested,” Tyrell says, obstinately. “In the middle of summer, no less.”

Perhaps a more direct approach. “Alright, c’mere,” Irving says. He pats the cushion beside him. “No need to be shy. I don’t bite.” _Unless you want me to, heh,_ he doesn’t add, because the Swede’s skittish enough as-is. Tyrell huffs indignantly, making a show of striding the remaining distance, like he’s been practicing his business walk in front of the mirror. Cute. He plants his tush onto the couch, stiff as a board, hands pressed into fists on his thighs.

“Now,” Irving says, slinging an arm across his shoulder, “Chopping wood is great and all, for getting that rage out into something more productive, but it ain’t helping none with those feelings that drain that energy right out of you. You need a little help for those, and there’s no shame in asking for it. Relax – take a load off. We’re in a cabin in the woods, no one around for miles, this is as much of a safe space as you can get. Think of that mask you’ve got on, that one you wear for your wife, showing her you’re strong, that you’re Mister Tough Guy – it ain’t comfortable, is it? It’s an ill fit. So, take it off, set that on the coffee table—” He mimes lifting off a mask off Tyrell’s face, and placing it aside, “There we go – and let me help you.”

Tyrell looks to the coffee table, and then back to him, and Irving sighs. “Don’t do well with metaphor, huh?” he mutters.

“Where are you going with this?” Tyrell says, a little uncertain now.

“You know how to chop and chop until that anger in your muscles is replaced by jelly, but you don’t know how to air out all that sadness, that frustration, that’s tying you into knots. It ain’t healthy, to be internalizing that mess of yours. Lucky for you, I got a rope I can throw down into that hole, to bring you back out. All you gotta do is ask.”

Tyrell’s face comes unstrung, loses its wrought-iron tension. He looks a little lost. _Still just a kid_ , Irving thinks. “Can I,” he begins, and then his jaw locks again, mulish, that machismo of his setting it like gummy concrete.

Probably best to put him out of his misery. He takes his hands, framing Tyrell’s face – Blue-Eyes sucks in a sharp breath, pupils drawn wide – and pulls them down, the back of his thumbs dug into the muscle of his cheek, tucked below the bone. Tyrell’s eyes flutter shut, his mouth falling slack. “See, doesn’t that feel nice, taking that off? Most people don’t know how much tension you carry in your face. Singing teacher taught me that trick – helps loosen up the jaw, she said. Used to have a voice like a baby angel, if you can believe. Anyway—”

“Shut up,” Tyrell hisses, and there it is – his cheeks are flushed against Irving’s palms, clenched hands drawing the thick cotton of his sweatpants taut to his thighs, eyes tight shut, still unable to breach that divide between pride and pragmatism, that paradox of the provider; that purely personal pleasure can’t be practical. Well, this won’t do.

“Uh huh,” Irving says, by way of acknowledgment. He takes his hands from Tyrell’s cheeks, fits the crease of one palm against his jaw, tickled by the soft stubble, and gently guides his face into his shoulder. Allowing his face to be hidden, preventing his expressions from betraying him – that’s an easy fix.

Still, Wellick’s the kind of man to feel with his entire body – not one to be read, so much as to broadcast emotion through a loudspeaker. In many ways, it’s a double-edged sword – makes him brittle, too easy to break, but also makes him perfectly malleable – dangerous, in the right hands. Speaking of which – Irving brings his hands around the back of Tyrell’s neck, thumbs pressed down the groove of his spine, down, down, digging then into the meat of his shoulders. Lotta tension in there. Poor Swedish Fish’s coiled up tighter than a pretzel. Funny old world, how things always seem to mirror themselves – Tyrell and his dichotomy of self, splitting logs to chip away at that hot coal of rage, but building up enough splinters in the process that he ends up like his great-aunt’s pincushion. Metaphor, again. Tyrell makes a soft noise and turns his head into Irving’s neck, arms spooled across his lap, body finally leaning loose and warm against him. Irving hums softly as he moves down Tyrell’s back, working out the splinters, some fragment of the choir days – because there was a choir, that was true, and coming from him, that nugget of honesty is worth its weight in gold. Not that Tyrell would ever know to appreciate, which is a damn shame.

Once he’s worked down the spine a couple of times, and Tyrell’s built up a nice reservoir of drool on his collar – gotta remember to get that dry cleaned, maybe he can pencil it in for Tuesday – he levers himself up, looping an arm under Tyrell’s armpit and across his back. “Up we go, that’s it,” he murmurs, and Tyrell sways against him, boneless, eyes half-lidded. Irving grunts a little – he’s not light, and that hefty emotional baggage probably adds another ten pounds. “Alright, let’s get you squared away, hmm?”

He half-walks, half-carries Tyrell into his bedroom, cursing occasionally when he knocks an elbow against a wall or doorway in the dark. Tyrell doesn’t resist when he pulls off his t-shirt, just raises his arms, nice as you please, and Irving sets it aside. Tyrell blinks, all slow and heavy, and makes a clumsy overture at Irving’s fly.

“No, none of that,” Irving reprimands gently. “Not tonight, anyhow.” He gathers up Tyrell’s hands, placing them back towards his chest, and then steers him onto the bed. Glasses folded on the side table, then his own belt and slacks join his shirt and tie in a pile on the floor – because, hell, if he’s gonna get them laundered anyway, what’s the point in being neat – and then he slides onto the bed behind Tyrell, who barely stirs at the dip in the mattress and the arm pulling him into Irving’s chest.

Irving lets himself drift, slows his breathing down to match Tyrell’s, still with that showtune tapping away at the back of his mind, soft and intermittent like radio static – he settles in, allows himself to sink into it, humming under his breath – _ask me, how do I feel, ask me now that we’re cosy and cling-in’…_

*

“This doesn’t mean I like you,” Tyrell says later.

“Uh huh,” Irving replies, the words tickling the hairs at the nape of Tyrell’s neck.

“This is just a practical arrangement. Throwing down a rope, as you said,” he continues.

“As I said,” Irving repeats, and places a kiss on his shoulder.

*

He’s kept late this time, dealing with a couple of little mice who were doing a little too much squeaking to be swept under the rug, but when that’s over, he charters a car to the cabin. It’s important to keep tabs on the Swede, keep him focused, because as much as he likes to posture with his alpha-male, lone wolf corporate bravado shtick, Wellick doesn’t do nearly as well on his own as he’d desperately like to believe. His little adventure the other day certainly proved that, and the crying, boy - he should just designate a shirt for the bad days, so Maria down at drycleaning doesn't bleed him, well, dry. Anyhow. Irving gets to the house at some ungodly hour in the morning to find Tyrell awake at the terminal, tension bending him into right angles, hunched and bleary-eyed at the keys.

“You’re back,” he says, neutrally, without looking away from the laptop.

“That I am,” Irving replies, peering over his shoulder to see what he’s up to. There’s a long string of code on the screen, some of it highlighted in different colors, but it’s all French to him. “Was trying to be quiet, didn’t expect you to be up this late. You should be away in dreamland right about now.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Tyrell replies. He taps in a few more lines, slowly – still favoring his right hand, his left thumb not yet healed from his little escapade.

“Coffee or cheese?” Irving asks. When Tyrell finally looks up at him, brow furrowed, he elaborates. “See, too much coffee, you’re awake all night, all those thoughts buzzing at you like you’ve whacked a beehive, but too much cheese – weird dreams. We're talking surreal, existential horrors, a one-way ticket to Crazytown.”

“I don’t think that’s accurate,” Tyrell replies, turning back to the computer.

Irving snorts, lifting one hand to Tyrell’s shoulder. “Always seemed so for me, anyway. My nonna swore by it.” He moves his thumb – not pressing, just light, soothing circles, keeping Tyrell steady. “So, nightmares, huh?”

Tyrell tenses fractionally under his palm, so Irving knows he made the right call. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“C’mon, it’s just you and me here, pal,” Irving says. “If you drink poison, do you swallow it, or spit it out? Talk it out with me, get that toxicity out of your system, and you’ll sleep like a baby, I guarantee.”

Tyrell sighs, his hands stilling at the keyboard. He’s silent for a long moment, and Irving brings his other hand up to pass gently over his other shoulder. “It was… Elliot was here. I tried to show him, all the research, all the progress I’ve made, but he wasn’t… he didn’t, he told me—” He draws in a deep, shuddery breath, and the typing starts anew. “I need to get back to work. It needs to be perfect. I can’t—I can’t let him down.”

“Well,” Irving says, choosing his words carefully, “You’re not going to get anything productive done in this state. Tired minds make mistakes – you were a hot-shot exec, you know this. You gotta realize when to call it in and start afresh tomorrow. You don’t wanna start your day sorting through the mess you made the night before, believe me.” Hooking his head over Tyrell’s shoulder, he slides his hands down, cupping his elbows and then pressing his thumbs into Tyrell’s forearms, dragging them in a straight line to his pulse point and back, working out the tension in his wrists. Tyrell’s head drops back against Irving’s shoulder, his breath in warm, unsteady puffs. Irving gently lifts his hands off of the keyboard, kneading into the muscles of his palm, and Tyrell makes a choked off, broken noise in his ear.

“There now,” Irving murmurs softly. “Can’t have you overextending yourself, especially with your injury. Carpal tunnel, RSIs, they’re no joke—”

Tyrell turns his head to capture his lips, quick and messy. _He’s gonna get a his neck all twisted if he carries on like this,_ Irving thinks vaguely, and circles around, gripping Tyrell’s jaw and angling it so it’s in a more comfortable position. Tyrell hooks his arms around Irving’s neck, one hand carding through his hair – which is, incidentally, very nice – and Irving takes the opportunity to ease him out of his seat, walking him back across the room. He dips down, tasting his neck, one eye cracked to keep a line of sight on the hallway, the entrance to the bedroom – steers Tyrell in that direction, biting a little at the underside of his jaw, which, by the high keening noise that seems to elicit, is a winner.

For a man seemingly so dedicated to his wife, it doesn’t seem to perturb him that he’s madly in love with someone else. Elliot this, Elliot that. In the aftermath, as the sweat cools against his skin, Irving wonders idly how Tyrell justifies that to himself – lying in bed late at night, imagining his arms around another man. Maybe he pictures his wife in some liminal space, her body somehow still pressed to the same spot on his mattress. A parallel paramour. _Now that’s a line_ – he makes a mental note to slide that into Chapter Seven.

*

“What about your wife?” Tyrell asks, once the first rays of sunlight lance across the room.

Irving grunts, not entirely awake, sweat flaked and itchy on the back of his neck. "Called her before I got in last night. She knows I'm out on business for the next couple'a days."

"That's not what I mean," Tyrell says.

Irving sighs heavily. “Can’t this wait until a more respectable hour?”

“No,” Tyrell replies, resolute. “I need to know why you’re doing this.”

“Alright, well, you said you’ve slept with other people during your marriage, but you’ve never cheated on your wife,” Irving says, tracing an idle pattern on Tyrell’s stomach. “Now, how d’you figure that?”

“That’s my business, not yours,” Tyrell answers stiffly. But not rejecting the line of questioning, not outright – facing away from him, he’d feel safe enough to humor the subject.

“Eh, but that’s just it, it’s business, right?” Irving says, swallowing a yawn. “No feelings involved – the ends justify the means. Not cheating on your wife to borrow a bag of flour from a neighbor, huh? Sometimes you just gotta bake a cake – it’s not helping anyone if all you’ve got is just a mess of eggs and milk. No harm, no foul.” He stretches out a little, bringing his arm up to cradle Tyrell’s shoulder across his chest. “This, being here, this is my job. I’m providing for my wife, and my boys, by providing the services required at my place of work. That’s the grand machine we live in, all of us doin’ our bit to polish up the gears.”

Tyrell hums in acknowledgment, seemingly satisfied with that reasoning, the sound reverberating back against Irving’s ribcage. “Once Elliot and I execute Stage Two, that ladder, the ascension of false promise, the great farce of corporate greed, that will all be gone. We’ll be freed of it – free to live without the shackles of society, to live as gods, as curators of our own destiny.”

“Uh huh,” Irving says, letting his eyes drift shut again, closing off the light.

*

“Come with me, I want to show you something,” Tyrell says, once Irving returns. It’s nearly a week this time that he’s been flying solo, but as far as Irving can tell he looks relatively calm behind his new shades. _Mirrored Oakley sunglasses,_ he recalls, amused. _A guy who worked outside, a guy who worked with his hands. Meaty damn hands._ Hell, no shame in indulging a little. Anyone with half-decent eyesight can appreciate how Tyrell's made a fine figure of himself from swinging that axe.

“Where are we going to, this fine afternoon?” Irving asks, expecting to be led back to the house and shown some gobbledegook on the computer that means Tyrell’s made some breakthrough in the Stage Two exploit. Instead, Tyrell lopes in decidedly the opposite direction, heading out towards the woods. “Hey, just a minute, slow your roll there. Since when are we – are _you_ – trekking out into the wilderness? It's not safe out there for you, you should know that by now.”

“Ran out of wood while you were away,” Tyrell replies over his shoulder, waiting for Irving to catch up. “Needed to fetch some deadfall, bring it back to the cabin. Don't worry, no one saw me, I never left the property.” Well. That was a miscalculation. Irving winces internally. Not often he makes a mistake, but he was sure the residuals of Tyrell’s dislocated thumb would reduce the rate he chopped his way through his deep anger issues – evidently, no dice.

“That’s my bad,” Irving admits, once he’s walking at Tyrell’s side. “I’ll get some of the boys to load up a few more stacks for you.” _Shouldn’t be much longer_ , he muses. _The kid’s probably getting out soon._

“Thank you, but no need, I’ve gathered enough for my purposes,” Tyrell replies.

“Well, if you’re all set in that respect, is there a point in coming up here?” Irving huffs. “I’m not much one for hiking. Never was a natural athlete, even in my youth.”

“It’s not far,” Tyrell says cryptically, and Irving sighs, gripping his thighs to help him push up against the steep gradient of the hill. A hand drifts into his line of sight, and he grabs it, letting Tyrell help him over a particularly gnarled root system. “We’re nearly there,” he assures him, and Irving grunts, keeping his eyes on his feet, one foot in front of the other.

“Here,” Tyrell says, after a few minutes, one hand guiding Irving’s shoulder. Irving takes a few moments to breathe, clearing that haze of exhaustion, and then looks up in the direction indicated – from this vantage point, the woods sprawl out in mottled greens towards a clear blue horizon. Out to the east is the nearest town, the one where Tyrell took a little trip in a police vehicle – corrugated metal rooves and small cars, meandering the streets like lazy ants, sparkle and arc in the sunlight.

“Very nice,” Irving says, for lack of a better answer. Views are pleasant, and all, but can be pretty accurately portrayed by a JPEG file rather than having to put in the effort to see them with his own myopic eyes.

“I found this place a few days ago, and I’ve been coming up here ever since,” Tyrell begins, bracketing his hands loosely at his hips. “There’s something about it, about seeing this view, seeing the bigger picture – everything is connected. Elliot and I, even you and I, we’re all tied to this ideal, this perfect plan – to destroy something, and in the process, build something greater from the ashes. This world, all of this, it won’t change, once we’re through. These trees will still be here, even that town will still stand, and they won’t even realize they’ve been reborn, in that moment, into the new order we’ve created, but they _will_. The weight of it, the gravity, it’s intoxicating, it’s almost like—I don’t know what the word is in English, like looking into the sun.”

Irving looks out on the veritably verdant vista before him and thinks instead about how Tyrell’s got a whole bag of cats rattling around in his skull, and one or two of them might be rabid. But there’s just something about him that makes him itch to soothe, to deconstruct him piece by piece and bring him back to his center – maybe because he’s so easy to work, easy to please, a mark who turns around and begs you to control him, to guide him forwards. That’s the rub, there, that’s the real danger – how to resist the temptation to keep patching up those holes, how to stop leaning in too close to stitch up those finer tears. He’s gotta remember, keep it on a loop, that Tyrell is just a job – _stop caring about her_ , he tells Cisco, and _stop caring about him_ , he reminds himself – and if Whiterose wants him swimming with the fishes then he’s gotta lead him right to the water.

 _Our little vacation might be coming to a close,_ he doesn’t tell him. Instead, he says, “I’m meeting up with my contact at the prison tomorrow. Once I’m done, I’ll get you updated on where we’re at with Elliot’s release.”

Tyrell smiles, radiant, for the first time in weeks. “Good,” he murmurs. “It’s all coming together, now.”

**Author's Note:**

> That’s all, folks! Always remember to do things at your own pace, drink lots of water, and let a criminal associate help deconstruct your toxic internalised masculinity through some nice shoulder rubs. P. S. – I’m sorry for all the alliteration. In my defense, Irving seems just about a pretentious enough writer to absolutely dig that shit.
> 
> Some tidbits:  
> \-- Yes, Irving was reading The Handmaid’s Tale. Clearly, from his novel excerpt, he acknowledges feminism at least on some surface level. I’d like to think he has hidden depths, lol.  
> \-- The song Irving hums is “If I Were a Bell” from Guys and Dolls (I mean. You can’t get any more New York than that). On a related note, try dragging the back of your thumbs down the muscle of your cheekbone towards the jawline – that is a legit technique for loosening your jaw for singers, and you really will be surprised how much tension you carry in your face!  
> \-- The word Tyrell is looking for which doesn’t have a direct translation in English is _solkatt_ , which can be paraphrased as ‘that concentrated, bright glare of sunlight reflected from a wristwatch or other analogous surface’.


End file.
